Motor vehicles are required to maintain structural integrity of vehicle subsystems in the event of a collision with another vehicle or stationary object. In order to dissipate energy associated with a collision, vehicles include bumpers that absorb energy by resisting impact and/or deforming to prevent a colliding vehicle from damaging the vehicle subsystems.
As the speed at which a collision takes places increases, the energy required to be dissipated by the bumper of the vehicle increases. The requirement to dissipate increased energy may be complicated by uneven bumper heights of the colliding vehicles. Because the bumpers of the colliding vehicles do not contact one another evenly, the energy dissipation systems of the vehicles may not activate in the event of a collision, which may lead to damage to vehicle subsystems.
Accordingly, alternative systems and methods for dissipating the energy of a vehicle collision are needed.